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Is this a good PCi-E 4-Port SATA Card?

dsc106

dsc106

Senior member
I am NOT running RAID, so I don't care about RAID features. And if I did, I would run RAID off my motherboard's chip. I just have a large case and a ton of internal HDDs and need more SATA ports. I can use my motherboard's SATA III ports for SSDs, these are all physical platter HDDs.

How is the quality on a card like this/chipset:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124027
http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Express-P...pr_product_top

(same card just two different links, would obviously order off amazon for cheaper)

If I don't need RAID, just more ports. I see a 3-star rating but just want to make sure if anyone here knows if these cards hold up fine for adding more SATA ports, or if there are any drawbacks I should know of?

Or a better card or brand around this price I should consider, or something with SATA III?

NOTE: Must be Mac compatible as this will be used in a Hackintosh

Thanks!
 
Nice rig, why cant you use the internal sata 3.0 ?

Dead link,, weird.... Since you have a kick butt system...Is your pci express slot 4x ? or 8x?

Because for me, my PCIe small slot is only 1.0 ,,, thats 400mbps , where 2.0 you can do 600mb.

Im guessing your mobo is PCIe 2.0 ........so the sata card you buy will give out your HDs full speed.

I just bought a sata 3 port card, 20 bucks to the door. Highpoint SATA 3 bracket. gl
 
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dsc106 said:
I am NOT running RAID, so I don't care about RAID features. And if I did, I would run RAID off my motherboard's chip. I just have a large case and a ton of internal HDDs and need more SATA ports. I can use my motherboard's SATA III ports for SSDs, these are all physical platter HDDs.

How is the quality on a card like this/chipset:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124027
http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Express-P...pr_product_top

(same card just two different links, would obviously order off amazon for cheaper)

If I don't need RAID, just more ports. I see a 3-star rating but just want to make sure if anyone here knows if these cards hold up fine for adding more SATA ports, or if there are any drawbacks I should know of?

Or a better card or brand around this price I should consider, or something with SATA III?

NOTE: Must be Mac compatible as this will be used in a Hackintosh

Thanks!
Click to expand...


Those cards will work fine for spinner drives where you simply need more SATA ports. They won't work well with SSD's though. Don't count on the software RAID being worth a crap though.
 
OK great, yeah I don't need the cards RAID I just have SATA 2 spinner drivers. My SSDs are plugged into SATA 3 ports on motherboard. My mobo is Asus Rampage IV Extreme so it's PCI-E 3.0 so I should be able to plug into a spare 8x slot. All my motherboard SATA ports are full (all 8!).

So this brand/chipset is a good buy then?
 
i have that card, it's not the fastest but its ok.

for mechanical drives its great, if you are running software raid (i know you are not) its not the greatest for writes.
 
So to clarify - it's not the fastest in GENERAL... or it's not he fastest for writes in RAID or for SSDs? Will I get bottleneck for SATA 2 spinner drives?
 
You get what you pay for. Get a LSI 9260-4i unless you are just looking for more physical SATA ports and don't care about performance.
 
exdeath, I'm really looking for more specific feedback than that. That is a $300 card you mention. I am not running RAID, SATA 3, or any SSDs. Will that $300 card give me ANY added benefit in performance? And if so, in hyper-specific terms, WHAT? (again, NOT for raid, NOT for SSD).

I'm looking for more physical SATA2 ports that won't bottleneck modern 2-3TB spinner HDDs when accessed 1 at a time, *maybe* 2 at a time. What's my bandwidth here/any limitations? I'll be plugged into a PCI-E 8x port.
 
let me clear up my response, yes it is good for mechanical drives, no it will not bottleneck your drives unless they are all being accessed at once even then you wont notice it,
 
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dsc106 said:
exdeath, I'm really looking for more specific feedback than that. That is a $300 card you mention. I am not running RAID, SATA 3, or any SSDs. Will that $300 card give me ANY added benefit in performance? And if so, in hyper-specific terms, WHAT? (again, NOT for raid, NOT for SSD).

I'm looking for more physical SATA2 ports that won't bottleneck modern 2-3TB spinner HDDs when accessed 1 at a time, *maybe* 2 at a time. What's my bandwidth here/any limitations? I'll be plugged into a PCI-E 8x port.
Click to expand...


The card you posted is a PCIe 1.0 1x card, giving 250 MB/sec total. Full bandwidth for 4 x SATA II ports requires 1200 MB/sec. Then it depends how good the controller is and whether or not it can deliver the maximum bandwidth available in practice. Plenty of crappy SATA II controllers with sufficient bus bandwidth behind them that only benchmark 150 MB/sec for example.

For your purposes, with two dino drives, the card you posted is sufficient. You MIGHT clip maximum bandwidth when using both drives for sequential transfers at the same time, but not by much.

Simply, you have 250 MB/sec max theoretical to distribute between your two drives based on that particular card's PCIe 1.0 1x interface alone, but the controller may have it's own limits as well. If you use two drives that can do 130 MB/sec under the best theoretical circumstances reading perfectly sequential ISOs from both drives at the same time, you might be missing out on a whopping 10 MB/sec.

For your purposes, the card you posted is sufficient.
 
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dsc106 said:
What's my bandwidth here/any limitations? I'll be plugged into a PCI-E 8x port.
Click to expand...
"Compliant with PCI Express Specification Revision 1.0a. 1-Lane (x1) PCI Express Connector."

Therefore, 8x helps not -- its still a mere 1x. Well, if the 8x is more directly connected than a 1x slot sharing bandwith with other things on Southbridge, then the 8x (in 1x mode) is slightly better.

It's a(n old) Siligon Image 3124 chip. Websearch with that says that it is a PCI/PCI-X chip and that the card must therefore have a PCI-E to PCI-X bridge. According to wiki, PCI-E 1x is the bottleneck on SATA2, PCI-X, PCI-E path, but still enough for two HDD simultaneously.
 
Great, thanks so much for the detailed response. EXACTLY what I was looking for and very informative.

This should work well for me as I can transfer between two HDDs plugged in at the same time.

Maybe I'll just connect my two optical blu ray drives to this card, my external esata port, and one internal spinner. That will free up more of the "good" ports on my motherboard.



---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?ljlu50
 
For those prices i'd get this

It's a pcie x4 with 4x sata III ports
and it doesn't have extra chips like the pcie bridge, or dual 2x controllers

I have no osx experience, but it uses a marvell controller which is popular.
 
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